The Wonders by Elena Medel

The Wonders by Elena Medel

Published by Algonquin ISBN 9781643752112

Hardcover, $26.95, 240 pages

March is Women's History Month and if you are looking for a great read, you can do no better than Elena Medel's brilliant and moving novel, The Wonders. Some of the book is set during the Women's March in in Madrid 2018.

Medel takes us inside the lives of two women- Maria in 1969 and Alicia in 2018. Maria works as a housekeeper and caregiver, scraping out a living in the few ways available to her. She left her hometown as a teenager after becoming pregnant by an older married man and giving birth to a daughter.

Maria is forced to leave her baby Carmen behind in the care of her disapproving parents, with her sister Soledad and 13 year-old brother Chico who help as well. Chico splits his time between working at a bar and caring for his niece.

Maria works hard, visits Carmen when she can, which is not often enough, She dreams of the day she has enough money to be permanently reunited with her daughter, but even as hard as she works, that opportunity slips further away with each passing each day.

We see Maria as she grows older and becomes politically active, beginning with her neighborhood association, trying to make her neighborhood safer. Eventually she started meeting with other women to discuss things important to them, but not to the men, in their lives- divorce, abortion, physical and emotional violence. Over the years, Maria found her voice and became a leader to other women.

I was particularly struck by this passage:

"No one can know the truth about these women. Their enemy is the boss: the one with more money, more power, the one who changes their shifts without bothering to ask, who's always looking down on them."

In 2018, Alicia is working her night shift at the convenience store. She prefers that shift, leaving her days free. Her husband Nando wants her to work days so they can spend time doing the things he likes but Alicia does not- cycling trips, beach days with his mother, dinner at the same restaurants with the same couples and their young children.  She "molded her life to his" and that is not enough for her.

In her unhappiness with Nando, Alicia has begun having one-night stands with strange men. Alicia's mother is Carmen, Maria's daughter. We are privy to Alicia's upbringing, and once again Chico has played a big part in the lives of the women in his family helping raise Alicia after her father's suicide. Chico is a caring, kind man, a balance to the other selfish, self-centered men in the novel.

As Alicia walks through the crowds of the women's protest, we wonder if she will meet up with her grandmother Maria- would she even know her if she saw her?

"Money's the thing: not having enough is the thing." Society does not value the work women do, from caring for children to caring for our elders, and money means freedom for those who have it. 

Medel is a Spanish poet and as such, every word in is carefully chosen for maximum inpact in this slim yet powerful 240-page story. We know Maria and Alicia's lives intimately in these few pages, a true accomplishment. If you read and loved Elena Ferrante's novels (or if you thought those books were too long for you), Elena Medel's debut novel The Wonders is your next read. I give it my highest recommendation.

Thanks to Algonquin Books for putting me on Elena Medel's tour.